Thanks for the puzzle, Porlock.
I think it is pretty clear which of the two possible interpretations of the title is intended.
This was my first year of doing the Listener. I started in about March, and solved my first few puzzles fairly easily. Then I hit a brick wall with Samuel's Pipes. This was the first carte blanche puzzle I had ever seen, and I was completely flummoxed. A successful solution of Bero's 2016111214 91885, which was really tough, and for which I wrote a mini-program to help decode the entries, inspired me to carry on. Since about the beginning of August, then, I am, I think, all correct.
I've been doing crosswords, mainly the Times and the Guardian, since I started at university, almost 25 years ago. As you all know, though, there is something rather special about the Listener, and I'm really happy to have discovered it this year. I take my hat off to the extraordinary ingenuity of the setters, and the industry of the editors, and thank them for helping to alleviate somewhat my existential angst.